The subject invention relates to a clutch assembly for a vehicle door latch.
Power sliding doors for mini-van type vehicles are becoming more popular and can be frequently purchased as an option. The sliding door has a main drive which drives the door between an open position and a generally closed or secondary latched position. The sliding door is also provided with a cinching servo-actuator for cinching the door from the secondary latched position to a primary latched position. In the primary latched position, the door is firmly closed against a seal which extends about the perimeter of the door and door opening.
Due to the size and mass of a typical sliding door, the force required to cinch the door closed can be relatively high. The servo-actuators must be highly geared to provide the requisite force using a motor of minimum size. The servo-actuator drivingly rotates a door latch from the secondary latched position to the primary latched position. Once the door latch has reached the primary latched position, the driving engagement between the servo-actuator and the latch must be released such that the latch may be electronically or manually released for opening the door.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,249,657 discloses a motor operated clutch members set in slide recess. A spring biases the clutch members to disengage upon relaeasing a driving rotation and a second spring biases the spring lever. U.S. Pat. No. 5,249,657 addresses problems which exist in attaching the clutch members to the spring.
A self-releasing clutch assembly comprising an input drive mechanism and an output drive mechanism is selectively engaged with the input drive mechanism. A first actuator is mounted to the input drive mechanism. A second actuator is mounted to the output drive mechanism and is moveable relative to the first actuator. A plurality of couplers are interdisposed between the first and second actuators and moveable between a disengaged position, with the couplers resting against one of the first and second actuators and allowing the other of the first and second actuators to rotate relative thereto, and an engaged position with the couplers interlocking the first and second actuators for relative concurrent movement. The clutch assembly is characterized by one of the first and second actuators including a plurality of driving surfaces and the other actuator including a plurality of abutments. The driving surfaces selectively move the couplers from the disengaged position to the engaged position in response to movement by the input drive mechanism and the abutments lock the couplers between the first and second actuators to couple the input drive mechanism with the output drive mechanism thereby transferring the movement of the input drive mechanism to the output drive mechanism. A single blasing device encircles the couplers for continuously biasing the couplers into the disengaged position with the couplers resting against one of the first and second actuators such that the biasing device automatically disengages the couplers from the abutments when the movement of the input drive mechanism ceases.
Accordingly, the subject invention provides a clutch or cinching assembly which selectively locks an input drive with an output drive to move a latch of a door lock. The clutch assembly the automatically disengages the input and output drives such that the door lock may be manually or electronically opened.